the highest shoot was about ten feet from the ground, and the
horizontal shoots on each side were from eight to ten feet in length.
The tree had been judiciously pruned, and all the limbs were full of
very large gooseberries, considering the age of the fruit. This is only
one instance out of thousands that I saw of extraordinary pains taken
with the gardens."

* * * * *

A WINTER'S NIGHT.

How beautiful this night! The balmiest sigh
Which vernal Zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault,
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which Love had spread
To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow;
Yon darksome walls, whence icicles depend
So stainless, that their white and glittering spears
Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that wrapt Fancy deemeth it
A metaphor of Peace--all form a scene
Where musing Solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone
So cold, so bright, so still.

P.B. SHELLEY.

* * * * *

HACKNEY COACHES.

Nothing in nature or art can be so abominable as those vehicles at this
hour. We are quite satisfied that, except an Englishman, who will endure
any thing, no native of any climate under the sky would endure a London
hackney coach; that an Ashantee gentleman would scoff at it; and that
an aboriginal of New South Wales would refuse to be inhumed within its
shattered and infinite squalidness. It is true, that the vehicle has its
merits, if variety of uses can establish them. The hackney coach conveys
alike the living and the dead. It carries the dying man to the hospital,
and when doctors and tax-gatherers can tantalize no more, it carries
him to Surgeons' Hall, and qualifies him to assist the "march of mind"
by the section of body. If the midnight thief find his plunder too
ponderous for his hands, the hackney coach offers its services, and is
one of the most expert conveyances. Its other employments are many, and
equally meritorious, and doubtless society would find a vacuum in its
loss. Yet we cordially wish that the Maberley brain were set at work
upon this